Shipyard cleanup continues

Despite the tough economic times, funding for the on-going effort to remove industrial toxins and other pollutants from the Hunters Point shipyard appear to be in the hopper for the coming year.

Mayor Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday that federal funding to the tune of $81.6 million had been secured. That appropriation follows $82 million in 2008 and about $400 million that the feds had spent through 2007.

The money should help expedite the city’s desire to have a 70-acre portion of the 500-acre shipyard cleared of contaminants so that parking spaces and a new 49ers football stadium could be built there.